PropTrack senior economist Eleanor Creagh has warned that Australia’s rental affordability crisis is set to worsen as immigration is ramped-up:
“Rental competition is tough at the moment”…
“The number of properties available for rent has fallen to historically low levels and demand to rent is up, particularly in the capital cities, with Covid-normal underway and the borders having reopened”…
“A return of migration and an imminent rebound in the international student market will continue to add to rental pressures, further shrinking the supply of available properties.”
Creagh’s concerns are justified. Annual rental growth has accelerated to 9.5% nationally, with strong growth recorded across nearly every market:
Extreme rental growth.
Rental supply has tightened since September 2020, with the flow of new rental listings around 15% below the previous five year average, whereas total rental listings are 35% below average:
Shocking rental undersupply.
Accordingly, the vacancy rate has plunged to less than half the decade average across the combined capital cities, and to less than one-third the decade average across the combined regions:
Record tight rental vacancy.
All indicators coming from the Albanese Government suggests it will ramp-up immigration aggressively. It plans to use September’s jobs summit, which will be dominated by immigration lobbyists, as a Trojan Horse to gain ‘consensus’ for the biggest ever migrant intake.
Anybody lobbying to increase immigration needs to answer the following question: where will the hundreds of thousands of new migrants live when there is already an extreme shortage of homes for the existing resident population?
As usual, the many costs of extreme immigration are never considered by the ‘Big Australia’ lobby nor policy makers.
